Kerry Washington joins Quentin Tarantino’s Django Unchained

October 26, 2011 - By Liam Goodwin

When Jamie Foxx and Leonardo DiCaprio were confirmed for Quentin Tarantino’s Django Unchained there was talk of Kerry Washington (Ray, The Last King of Scotland) being in talks to play Broomhilda, Django’s wife who is sold off to entertain the white patrons of Candyland.

Now Deadline reports that Kerry Washington has landed the role, and the delay in confirmation was due to Tarantino’s interest in “making a discovery in the role, and that led to a long casting search”. However it appears he couldn’t find any upcoming talent, so went back to Washington who he had his eye on from the beginning.

The casting of Broomhilda has interested a few people who managed to read the script a few months ago. While the character is the female lead, Shadow and Act notes the role is not “the most glamorous, nor complex” as there are several scenes where Broomhilda is naked, and a few where she is being raped and whipped. The Playlist says the character is “essentially a damsel in distress…and that’s about it”, but the script may have changed slightly since, and Kerry Washington might be able to bring some depth to the role.

In the movie Django (Jamie Foxx) is a freed slave, who, under the tutelage of a German bounty hunter (Christoph Waltz) becomes a bad-ass bounty hunter himself, and after assisting Waltz in taking down some bad guys for profit, is helped by Waltz in tracking down his slave wife and liberating her from an evil plantation owner (Leonardo DiCaprio). Samuel L. Jackson will play DiCario’s slave, Stephen, while Kurt Russell will play the sadistic trainer Ace Woody, who forces male slaves to fight to entertain the white patrons of Candyland.

Tarantino plans to start shooting Django Unchained in New Orleans in January, and The Weinstein Company will release it on December 25, 2012.